1. Technical Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the field of methods for consolidating computer hardware devices on which a plurality of computer-based applications are stored and/or operated. The invention relates more specifically to methods for determining a future state for hardware resources and their applications and for estimating the cost and time requirements for consolidating multiple hardware devices into fewer hardware devices.
2. Description of Related Art
The use of computer systems and applications greatly simplifies the storage and processing of data. Computer systems and applications enable businesses to reach certain economies of scale, by streamlining the cost, time and practicalities of handling large volumes of data. As a business grows, however, the use of specialized systems and applications among its separate units can cause the overall information technology (IT) devices of the business to become fragmented. The major result of fragmentation is the underutilization of hardware, such that each server or other hardware device is operated well below its capacity. Fragmentation also leads to other inefficiencies, such as duplicative licensing and installation of operating systems and applications; excessive use of electrical power; excessive staffing; and inefficient utilization and maintenance of other devices. These wastes are often prolonged by the tendency of each business unit to become entrenched in a particular operating system, group of applications, or computer hardware.
Advances in computer hardware have enabled businesses to combat certain inefficiencies. For example, new technologies allow for many images of an application or operating system to be operated on a single CPU. Other technologies allow for single hardware devices to operate as multiple virtual machines. Nonetheless, the costs of change often exceed simple purchase or licensing fees. By the time a significant advancement is made, each unit of a business may be mired within its use of antiquated technologies. Applications may need to be replaced or migrated to a different hardware environment, and then configured to interact with particular operating systems or other applications. This results in downtime for hardware devices and ramp-up periods for users. Hence, the cost-benefit ratio of changing hardware or other IT resources often forces a business to lose money by living with inefficiencies for an extended period of time.
If a business continues to grow, a point typically arrives when the cost of continuing inefficiencies outweighs the cost of consolidating or reconstituting a business' IT resources. A business must be able to determine when it reaches this condition, so that it need not waste money unnecessarily. While methods for updating and consolidating applications or hardware have grown, businesses have been unable to project the cost or time requirements for either solution within useful tolerances. Thus, businesses are prone to waste financial resources by significantly undershooting or overshooting the point when consolidation and updating becomes a cost-effective solution. Additionally, a business undergoing consolidation and updating often suffers from an inability to plan precisely for the interruption of its operations. This adds to the cost of consolidation and updating, forcing some businesses to undergo migration of applications either much sooner, or much later, than it becomes cost-effective.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,249,769, to Ruffin, et al., discloses and claims a method for matching the IT infrastructure needs of a business with a set of IT solutions, and generating a proposal for the solution that would most help the business. Data relating to the IT objectives of a business are collected via an interactive process and are sequentially analyzed using modeling tools. The IT infrastructure is partitioned into “islands” of closely-related elements. Each island is assigned a score that reflects the value of enhancing its elements, and the islands are ranked according to their scores. A solution service or product is then chosen for each island from a database of available solutions. A proposal, or “Business Solutions Assessment,” is then generated for the enterprise by the provider.
While providing a valuable solution to IT fragmentation, the Ruffin invention has some limitations. First, the IT solution is selected from a database of pre-defined solutions. It is not customized to each individual enterprise. The patent states that its “process is fraught with a great degree of imprecision” and that a “customer engagement may result in failure for a variety of reasons including . . . applicability of [the provider's] solution portfolio . . . ” (col. 6, lines 45-49). Any customization of a solution must be identified by the customer's technical staff, or the customer must engage the provider's staff to develop a customized solution (col. 6, lines 28-42). This adds time and cost to a project for the enterprise whose IT devices are being consolidated. An automated means for providing customized solutions would be more advantageous.
Additionally, while the Ruffin invention provides a general cost estimate for migrating applications during a server consolidation process, the cost estimate has a broad margin of error. The reason for this is that few factors are used to adjust cost, and these factors are applied to a migration as a whole. Factors affecting migration cost rarely affect every task during the migration of an application from one platform to another. For instance, the language factor disclosed in Ruffin (col. 21, line 38) may affect actual migration and some testing functions after migration, but it will not affect baselining, system building, data import, or data export tasks. Hence, adjusting the entire migration process by the language factor will cause the estimated cost to be significantly higher than the real cost. The more factors that are applied, the more the overestimation compounds. Migrations must be broken down into individual tasks to which factors are applied, in order to obtain a cost estimate that prevents overshooting the point where consolidation becomes cost-effective.
Finally, while Ruffin discloses a generalized method of cost estimation, it discloses no means for estimating the time required for a consolidation process. The time required is an integral portion of any solution, because downtime and service interruptions result in costs that only the customer can truly assess. It is imperative that the customer be able to prepare for a consolidation process that is started and ended within a precise timeframe. Ruffin again admits to imprecise implementation of a server consolidation process, stating that a “customer engagement may result in failure [due to] delays and misstarts in the project planning and implementation process.” (col. 6, line 45-50). This may be remedied with an accurate estimate of the time required for the IT consolidation process.
As a result, there exists a great need in the art for a method for determining a customized future state for an enterprise's IT resources, and for accurately projecting the costs for updating and consolidating a plurality of applications from multiple server computers or other computer-based environments onto fewer server computers or other computer-based environments. The method must provide precise estimates for costs and should also accurately estimate time requirements for consolidation. Despite its production of customized solutions, the method must be automated and replicable, to ensure that it provides more consistently valuable assessments than non-automated, ad hoc plans and estimating methods.